swords

Perhaps the heart of my business, which covers rapiers, backswords, broadswords, smallswords of the fighting era right through to the 19th and 20th century, principally Austrian, British, French and German. Good reference books include: Robson's book on British military swords (2nd edition); museum catalogues (in particular, for the 17th & 18th centuries, the Wallace Collection's two-volume set); the series (a set of some 30 volumes, out of print) on French military swords by Christian Aries; and, covering Scotland, The swords and the sorrows, the 1996 Culloden exhibition catalogue.

This hanger is almost certainly of German origin, probably the Oels family of Brunswick (the hereditary dukes) because of the presence of the gold 'O' featured in four places on the mounts. An unusual feature is the ovoid pommel, similar to that of a smallsword of the period.

This hanger, almost certainly of military or naval origin, is an exceptionally clean example with a 24" sawback blade and a staghorn grip. Typically they would have been used in the Seven Years War, as well as in the US War of Independence. It would have been carried in a brass-mounted leather scabbard, now sadly lacking.

This iron-mounted sabre, dating from the early years of the Napoleonic Wars, would have been carried by a British officer in a cavalry or yeomanry unit. Singularly, it has a backstrap/pommel in the form of a lion's head, something I have never seen on this pattern in over 50 years of arms dealing. All I need is a good portrait to pin it down!

This Prussian sword's simple design was introduced in the mid-19th century, originally with a slightly curved, pipe-backed blade in a leather and brass mounted scabbard for all Fusilier regiments and battalions of the Prussian army. The guard star marks it as being Garde Fusilier and the black painted scabbard dates it as being post-1905.

The hilt could be Dutch or French, the use of tortoiseshell having been introduced to Europe in the late 17th century, probably through Dutch colonial connections. The mid 18th-century German blade (26" long) would have replaced an earlier, shorter, straight, double-edged blade (broken?), probably to enable the weapon's use as a naval hanger.

This sword, dating from 1805-09, would have been carried by an Inspecteur aux (or 'des') Revues (the equivalent of Commissary in the British Army), responsible for pay, provisions (hence the ears of wheat on the guard and knuckle bow) and the depot system. Before this, they simply carried an ordinary infantry sword. The sword is rare.

This is one of the rarest of the post-1812 War cavalry swords. The Federal army was microscopic at this time, perhaps only 30,000 strong, the numbers only gearing up for the Mexican War of 1848. The design is a direct copy of the British light cavalry sabre of the same era.

There is a single letter in Gothic script on the metal covering the stem of the knot, probably an 'L', which would be for one of the minor Saxon dukedoms of this period. This extremely rare sword knot is, unfortunately, in rather poor shape commensurate with its age, but its original quality is still apparent.

This rare sword knot was carried by officers serving with General Vlasov's army, which the Germans raised in 1944 from Russian volunteers (former prisoners of war) to help them in their struggle against Communism. The colours are the old Imperial Russian colours. The acronym of this unit was POA.